Riordan’s New Primary Focus: GOP Rival Simon

Abandoning efforts to stay above the Republican fight, Richard Riordan leveled a scathing advertising attack Wednesday on GOP rival Bill Simon Jr., questioning his business acumen and fitness to serve as governor.

The charges, in a 30-second spot airing statewide, represent a significant change in tone for Riordan, reflecting a heightened concern about his prospects in the March 5 primary--and a new hostility toward the man he calls a friend and had urged to enter the race.

“Who is Bill Simon?” asks the advertisement, which then accuses him of financial mismanagement and failing to vote in several elections. “Is he really ready for California’s toughest job?”

A spokesman for Simon said Riordan “should be ashamed of himself.”

“Dick Riordan is doing exactly the same thing Gray Davis is doing, which is attacking because they don’t have anything to say about solving California’s problems,” said Sal Russo, manager of Simon’s campaign. “Riordan hasn’t offered a single idea since his campaign started.”

The attack ad--the first negative spot Riordan has broadcast--came as the GOP candidates for governor worked to build their ground-level support with appearances from San Diego to Sacramento.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Riordan toured a Vista electronics plant, where he promoted tax cuts. Simon made stops in Sacramento and San Francisco to tout education reform. Secretary of State Bill Jones was in San Diego, accusing Riordan of flip-flopping on issues such as abortion, the death penalty and tax-cutting Proposition 13.

Incumbent Democrat Davis, who launched an audacious ad Tuesday night featuring former Republican Gov. George Deukmejian criticizing Riordan, planned to pull the spot this morning in favor of a more traditional advertisement touting his record in office and recalling his service in Vietnam.

As the flurry of activity suggests, California’s airwaves are the place where elections are typically won and lost. With the GOP race growing tighter and seemingly more volatile, strategists were busy Wednesday poring over polling data and TV schedules, in some cases shifting their advertising hour by hour and city by city.

The aerial assault by Riordan telegraphed concerns that after months atop the opinion polls, he now faces a serious fight for the GOP nomination.

As the front-runner, Riordan long refused to engage in the sniping that has characterized the Republican primary, aiming his ire for the most part at Davis. But even some advisors now question the wisdom of that strategy, as Simon appears to have gained momentum and solidified support among the party’s conservative base, which may wield outsized influence if voter turnout is low.

Ironically, it was Riordan who coaxed Simon, a friend and fellow parishioner at the same Santa Monica church, to make his maiden run for office. Months later, Riordan jumped into the contest at the beckoning of the White House. Awkward as it was, both men expressed nothing but good will--until recently, when Simon started creeping up on Riordan in the polls.

Any semblance of fraternity was altogether abandoned in Riordan’s new ad, which accuses Simon of mismanaging family investments and failing to vote “in 13 of 20 elections,” involving “issues like school construction, anti-crime measures and bilingual education.”

Simon has admitted that he did not vote in three recent Republican primaries, calling it a mistake. His staff has said that polling records do not confirm any more missed votes.

The financial mismanagement cited in Riordan’s ad referred to the Simon family’s long-ago investment in thefailed Western Federal Savings and Loan. The institution’s collapse cost the Simons $40 million, not counting the costs to taxpayers.

Simon accuses the federal government of prematurely taking over the S&L;, saying government officials reneged on the terms of the deal his father had worked out when it was purchased. The allegation is the subject of a pending civil lawsuit by the investors against federal regulators.

“These ads are false,” said Russo, of the Simon camp. Riordan “knows they’re false and still he says it. He needs to go back to St. Monica’s,” the church where the two men worship.

Riordan, for his part, laughed off Davis’ own attack ad.

“I have more interesting things to do with my life,” Riordan said, when asked whether he had seen the spot featuring Deukmejian, who has endorsed Jones. “You just can’t keep up with the misinformation that the governor is putting out.”

Riordan made the remarks in a brief appearance in Vista, at a north San Diego County electronic manufacturing plant owned by a Vietnamese family.

He praised the company, DDH Enterprises Inc., as a symbol of capitalism at its best and used the occasion to urge elimination of the sales tax on manufacturing equipment. Riordan touted the proposal as a way to boost the state’s economy and attract industry to California. He said his proposal, involving an issue dear to conservatives, would cost about $400 million annually.

Jones, in San Diego, questioned Riordan’s trustworthiness and also took a swipe at Simon’s spotty voting record.

Simon, meantime, pitched education reform in a speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco and at Bowling Green Elementary, a charter school in a blue-collar neighborhood of Sacramento.

*

Times staff writers Carl Ingram, Michael Finnegan and H.G. Reza contributed to this report.